Sneaky Pro-lifers trying to prosecute women for stillbirths and miscarriages.

[myreality]

http://rt.com/usa/mississippi-prosec...carriages-781/

Mississippi considers prosecuting women for stillbirths and miscarriages

The Supreme Court of Mississippi is currently considering a case that could lead to charges of manslaughter for women who suffer miscarriages or stillbirths.

Nina Buckhalter was indicted for manslaughter in 2009 after giving birth to a stillborn baby girl named Hayley 31 weeks into her pregnancy.

According to a Mother Jones report, those charges were based on the detection of methamphetamines in Buckhalter’s system, which led a grand jury in Mississippi to declare that the defendant "did willfully, unlawfully, feloniously, kill Hayley Jade Buckhalter, a human being, by culpable negligence."

Now the court is set to rule on whether the prosecution can move forward after hearing oral arguments on the case on April 2.

According to Farah Diaz-Tello, an attorney with National Advocates for Pregnant Women and part of Buckhalter’s legal defense, if her case goes forward it could well lead to a spate of similar prosecutions in Mississippi and other US states.

The fear now is setting a precedent that "unintentional pregnancy loss can be treated as a form of homicide," says Farah Diaz-Tello.

Mississippi's manslaughter laws were never intended to apply in cases of stillbirths and miscarriages, according to reporting by Mother Jones. However, Mississippi prosecutors believe that two state laws allow them to charge Buckhalter. One law defines manslaughter as the “killing of a human being, by the act, procurement or culpable negligence of another”, while the second includes “an unborn child at every stage of gestation from conception until live birth” as the state’s definition of human beings.

Mississippi is widely considered one of the most socially conservative states in the US, and as recently as 2011 a state ballot measure had sought to grant full rights to fertilized eggs, effectively making abortion illegal.

Lawmakers are also actively looking to shut down the state’s sole women's health clinic that performed abortions.

Diaz-Tello believes that the underlying motivation behind Buckhalter’s case is an attempt to establish “personhood” for fetuses, a central issue in the contentious arguments for banning abortions which rely on a legal definition of an unborn child’s “viability” or rather the state’s definition of life.

The definition of “personhood” could, in turn, allow the introduction of further laws regulating or banning the use of emergency contraceptives such as Plan B, or be used in further arguments in restricting access to abortion services.

Robert McDuff, a Mississippi civil rights lawyer also representing Buckhalter, argued to the state Supreme Court that the state’s law defining homicide as including the killing of a child includes an exemption for women seeking a legal abortion.

McDuff argues that, if women in Mississippi can legally terminate unwanted pregnancies, this should carry over to unintentionally ending a wanted pregnancy.

At least a dozen medical and public health groups have filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Buckhalter case, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians.

In that brief the group argues that threat of prosecution might actually lead to more abortions by women dealing with drug or alcohol addiction, or could raise the risk of miscarriage or stillbirth by women who fear they may be reported by medical professionals to the state.

Earlier in the year the state of Alabama set a precedent for prosecuting pregnant women for drug use when it upheld convictions against Amanda Kimbrough and Hope Ankrom for “chemical endangerment” of a child. As Mother Jones notes, that 2006 law was aimed to punish individuals who expose children rather than fetuses to illegal drugs, and as in the case of Buckhalter seems to have further defined “personhood.”

Pro-Lifers trying to be sneaky again.

[ronin sparthos]

I totally called Mississippi before I even clicked this link.

[Athas]

In this case I don't think I'd mind seeing the person hit with a felony charge, do we really need to worry about setting a president here?

[kuronosan]

In this case I don't think I'd mind seeing the person hit with a felony charge, do we really need to worry about setting a president here?

No, we'll handle that in 2016.

[test123]

those charges were based on the detection of methamphetamines in Buckhalter’s system

If Ariel Castro can be charged with murder of the unborn, why can't this mother?

[kuronosan]

Because one was indirect while the other was very deliberate. Do you pride yourself on being so stupid?

[test123]

And drunk drivers get off because drunken vehicular manslaughter is not deliberate?

[kuronosan]

And drunk drivers get off because drunken vehicular manslaughter is not deliberate?

Good logic, poor application.

[test123]

Good logic, poor application.

Hipster forum logic: first sentence make up a biased exception for your argument. In the second sentence bash the opponent with slurs. Then when faced with hard arguments, avoid and label them not relevant.

[myreality]

those charges were based on the detection of methamphetamines in Buckhalter’s system

If Ariel Castro can be charged with murder of the unborn, why can't this mother?

This mother can, it is just how they are going about it that is creating a future precedent for similar trials, soon natural miscarriages/stillbirths may be directly charged without outside interference or some such. Then down the rabbit hole we go.....Now if you'll excuse me i just took some strong sleep meds and not even sure what im doing right now. Goodnight.....

[Yabby]

In the second sentence bash the opponent with slurs.

http://www.randi.org/site/images/stories/Inigo.jpg

[kuronosan]

1) I'm not a hipster.
2) You're incapable of making rational arguments because you think that the quantity of sentences determines the quality of argument.

You're irrelevant because you simply cannot see flaws in your own logic or beliefs; you have a hard-on for the likes of Ron Paul and yet you cannot form your own coherent argument based on original thought. The fact that you lack the ability to reason beyond what you have read demonstrates your inherent stupidity.

Next, "amagad how is her taking meth and killing baby different from drunk driving killing person" is not a 'hard argument'. I'm only going to explain this once:

1) Drunk driver is an adult, making irresponsible choices that result in the deaths of others - KNOWING that the alcohol itself will cause the problem.
2) Said meth-head may not consciously realize she is pregnant, and, if she does, the question of when life begins trumps the entire argument.
3) Being that we cannot say with certainty when a fetus is "alive enough" to constitute manslaughter, this charge is a slippery slope.

Finally, as a supporter of Ron Paul and liberalism in general I'm amazed you would support a law that could potentially give a government more power over its people than necessary and allow the abuse of a law which potentially enables/guarantees its misuse.

In short, my argument is excusable because I'm awesome; you're a fucking tool with no brain; and you're totally irrelevant to any sane discussion between two intellectuals in which you pose as the third wheel.

We're done here.

[archibaldcrane]

Wouldn't they first have to prove that the meth caused the miscarriage? Miscarriages can happen for a variety of reasons, many of which are completely out of the mother's control.

Good luck with all that.

[test123]

You're doing it again...

[Athas]

It's difficult to make the argument that the mother wasn't aware of the pregnancy at 31 weeks, comparisons to drunk driving seem appropriate here.

Concerns that this could lead to criminal cases against a naturally occurring stillbirth seems unwarranted.

[Melena]

Please tell me I'm not the only one who just see's Test sticking his fingers in his ears screaming LALALA CAN'T HEAR YOU whenever someone brings up a counter point to whatever crazy argument he starts up.

[Drex]

This mother can, it is just how they are going about it that is creating a future precedent for similar trials, soon natural miscarriages/stillbirths may be directly charged without outside interference or some such. Then down the rabbit hole we go.....Now if you'll excuse me i just took some strong sleep meds and not even sure what im doing right now. Goodnight.....

Slippery slope is a hell of a drug

Only thing more alarming is the number of people lining up to defend this independent, empowered woman. Think I'm going to hurl.

[archibaldcrane]

It's difficult to make the argument that the mother wasn't aware of the pregnancy at 31 weeks, comparisons to drunk driving seem appropriate here.

Concerns that this could lead to criminal cases against a naturally occurring stillbirth seems unwarranted.

How do you know this wasn't a naturally occurring stillbirth?

[test123]

How do you know this wasn't a naturally occurring stillbirth?

That is like saying a knife victim could have died of cancer before he bled to death. Hey, it's a chance!

[kuronosan]

My point is that it's difficult to determine the cause of a stillbirth/miscarriage as there are many factors at work here. Punching a woman in the stomach and starving her is pretty much guaranteed to cause it. Drugs? Yea, they could. Charging someone with miscarriage manslaughter because they're on drugs is NOT the same thing as manslaughter due to driving under the influence.

How can you not see this?

Situation 1 (Direct effect): Man drinks until drunk. Man drives. While driving, he runs down a woman. The drinking directly caused this.
Situation 2 (Direct effect): Man punches pregnant woman. Man starves woman. As a result, woman has miscarriage. This abuse directly caused this.
Situation 3 (Indirect effect): Woman uses drugs. Woman has miscarriage. It cannot be PROVEN that the drugs caused this as drugs have DIFFERENT effects on different people. The psychological effects (dependency, withdrawal) and physical (toothrot, allopecia) could be considered universal but the physiological (hormones, signaling pathways) cannot be solidly proven without research.

So unless someone is a medical examiner that can do tests which determine that her drug use was directly responsible for the death of the infant, and can prove that the infant was of survivable age in the first place (and can be considered alive), and can prove that the two are connected, I suggest you quit while you're ahead.

That is like saying a knife victim could have died of cancer before he bled to death. Hey, it's a chance!

No, it's more like saying a victim was in a car accident and was suffering an internal hemorrhage. He dies from the hemorrhage, which was not a result of the accident. Do you charge the other driver with manslaughter?